In fact, the most recent research proves that optimal vitamin D levels are strongly linked to improved sports performance and lower injury rates among competitive athletes.

Are you deficient in vitamin D3?

A study presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons found that only 25% of Division I college athletes had optimal vitamin D3 levels. That means 75% were deficient.At Core 4 Nutrition, we’ve been assessing the vitamin D3 levels of hundreds of non-collegiate athletes for the past five years. And only 10% of those tested have had an optimal level of vitamin D!

You train for hours, spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on equipment but if your level of this one powerful substance are not optimal you will not get the benefits of all your hear work and money. I am not talking about a new supplement with fancy packaging or high-end marketing but a substance that our body has relied on for thousands and thousands of years.

The substance is vitamin D. And without optimal levels of vitamin D3, rest assured you are leaving health and performance on the table. It is important to know that Vitamin D really isn’t a vitamin that you get from dairy but rather, a hormone-like substance that your skin manufactures when exposed to the UV-B rays of the sun.

Vitamin D contributes to peak athletic performance by directing the physical processes involved with muscular function, strength and recovery. In addition, it drives physical reaction time, balance and coordination. In order to understand how vitamin D can impact your athletic performance, it’s important to understand that it functions—much like a steroid hormone (due to its highly-anabolic ability to promote growth, repair and recovery)....

If you've read a magazine or searched the internet lately you know there's a lot of information (and therefore confusion) about choosing and using nutritional supplements. But if you've got the facts, making th

If you've regularly read my posts, you know that it’s very important to create synergy between your dietary and supplement programs. The functional health of your body is driven by thousands of different physiological processes. The strength and efficiency of these processes are, in turn, driven by the four, core, physiological variables—vitamin D, essential fatty acids, nitric oxide, and micronutrients—each working to support the efficacy of the others.

Just like a weak link can cause a chain to break, a deficiency in just one of these key nutrients can cause an entire system to fail. While the use of a vitamin D supplement is good, its benefits are exponentially increased when it is taken in conjunction with omega 3 fatty acids and a broad-spectrum of micronutrients.

Recent research speaks to the importance of a specific micronutrient, magnesium, which is critical for vitamin D activity. So critical, in fact, that it can actually boost vitamin D's ability to protect the human body from fatal heart disease and colon cancer by nearly 500 percent! If your magnesium level is low, your body will not benefit fully from vitamin D supplementation—even if your vitamin D level is optimal. A new study confirms close and interconnected relationship between magnesium and vitamin D. Results indicate that adults with a magnesium intake of at least 100 mg of supplemental magnesium daily were at 70 percent less risk of being vitamin D deficient...

Being healthy and physically fit doesn’t have to be complicated. But it does require some attention to the scientific details.

If you want to feel and perform well, you’ll need to optimize your vitamin D3 level. Studies have clearly shown that vitamin D3 improves muscle reaction time, strength, balance, and coordination. You can refer to a previous post on this subject here.

But wait. There’s more!

A new study entitled Nutrients: Vitamin D and Human Health published in the journal Nutrients showed that vitamin D3 facilitates faster muscular recovery and prevents tissue damage following intense exercise...